North America

The year Mexico celebrated its bicentenary, I was in California for a semester and swine flu wasn’t as scary as it was when it first broke out. Furthermore, Rally Mexico in Leon was as far from the drug cartels as one could get. It was my chance to catch up with friends working in the business […]

As of 2020, it’s been a decade since I got my first taste of living abroad – a semester on the West Coast as an exchange student. I question the relevance of writing a guide this late, so here are the things that stood out during that stint.

Sat in a minivan in Guanajuato with two Mexican families, I waited for the driver to finish his introduction in Spanish. Surely, an English version would follow. A minute passed. There wasn’t one. I then turned to passengers for a translation; I just about made out ‘no’ and ‘ingles’ in the replies. What did I get myself into?